Computer networks have proven to be remarkably powerful tools for storing vast amounts of information. One particular computer network, the Internet, employs a non-proprietary design and protocol that allows a virtually endless number of file servers to connect into the Internet. Consequently, the Internet over the last few years has rapidly proliferated with every major university, business and a host of individuals connecting into the Internet and offering information for viewing and study by internet users.
Typically, an internet user employs a computer program called a browser that allows the user to view pages written in the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). Typically, the browsers work by collecting from the user an address for an HTML pages stored on the internet. The user, by any conventional method, enters the address into the browser and the browser collects from the cite pointed to by the address, an HTML page that can be viewed by the browser. This allows the user to view the hundreds of thousands of HTML pages stored on the Internet.
For the browser to be useful, users must be able to determine the address of those web pages of interest to the user. To this end, search engines are provided that, at the direction of the user, will search through tens or hundreds of thousands of documents stored on the Internet to select those pages that are of interest to the user. To this end, the typical engine will direct the user to enter one or more keywords which are descriptive of the subject matter that the user is researching. The search engine will employ these keywords to identify pages stored on the Internet that contain subject matter related to the subject matter of interest to the user. Once the search engine has identified the addresses of web pages of interest to the user, the user can employ the browser to view each of these pages. Typically, the browser provides a book-mark feature that allows the user to create a book-mark, or reference, to those pages that the user deems to be the more relevant results of the search. Further, browsers typically allow the user to copy and store locally the pages, or portions of the pages, returned by the search engine. At a later time, the user can printout the stored pages and mark them up manually to highlight those sections of particular interest, or to make additional notations or references.
Accordingly, a browser and a search engine combine to provide a tool for performing general searches of the content of the Internet. However, this tool provides limited opportunity to organize and analyze information identified during searches of the Internet, and therefore users must rely on conventional, manual procedures, such as highlighting, marking-up, or photocopying, to edit or provide notations to the information retrieved during a search. Accordingly, it would be desirable to have more sophisticated tools for analyzing and organizing information stored on a computer network, such as the Internet.